I’ve
never found André Jolivet to be a composer who is easy to take
in a whole sitting, but the clever presentation and programming
by Eline van Esch and Etcetera have sugared the pill: colourful
covers and illustrations can render ‘difficult’ music
attractive. The flautist’s association of Jolivet’s works with
the paintings of Jos van den Berg is illustrated with examples
in the CD booklet and described in her own introduction, which
sums up in a paragraph that which is elaborated upon later in
helpful notes by Jeanine Landheer.

Jolivet
associated the flute with ‘the breath of life’, and with his
search for musical influences outside the Western mainstream
was attracted to the ‘primitive’ aspects of both flute and percussion.
Together with other musicians, Olivier Messiaen among their
number, he co-founded ‘La Jeune France’ in 1936 and produced
the Cinq incantations for flute solo in the same year.
Heavy with symbolism, the works are given elaborate titles which
form a kind of collective narrative from “To receive the negotiators…”
to “For the burial of the chieftan…”, but listening ‘blind’
the pieces are especially impressive for their intensity and
impassioned expressiveness. Eline van Esch is a superb advocate
for these works, standing foursquare behind every note and never
letting up – convincing us of musical content and never hiding
behind impressive technique within a modern idiom.

Carrying
on in chronological order, Chant de Linos was originally
written for flute and piano as a commission for a competition
at the Paris Conservatoire in which Jean-Pierre Rampal won first
prize. The two musicians became great friends, and the composer
later heightened the mythological element in the work by re-arranging
it with harp and strings. In this version, the piece does take
on more of a timeless poise in the more intimate sections, but
the rhythmic charge is also dynamic and passionately challenging
for players and audience alike.

Cabrioles, the closing piece on the disc, was composed as a short study
for flute students, and is a well judged finale – the title
meaning something like ‘capers’. The other work for flute and
piano is the far more substantial Sonate, which was written
for Jean-Pierre Rampal and Robert Veyron-Lacroix. Unexpectedly
for Jolivet, the work has a classical three movement form, and
while the idiom is at times angular and atonal, the piece is
in fact quite lyrical and approachable for much of the time.
Where lyricism ends, drama takes over, and there are some dark
and threatening moments in which the primitive Jolivet comes
through again.

The
Suite en Concert for Flute and Percussion was written
in 1965, while Jolivet was professor of composition at the Conservatoire
in Paris. This piece is also known as his second flute concerto
and as such forming part of a series, and is also dedicated
to Jean-Pierre Rampal. The ‘orchestra’ consists of four percussionists,
and there are four contrasting movements, each with its own
rich variety of colour and character. There is none of the gentle
relief one might have hoped for from tuned percussion such as
marimbas or vibraphone, but, reflecting Jolivet’s earlier introduction
to composition through Edgar Varèse, has aspects of the elder
composer’s uncompromising approach to sound – especially in
percussion. The penultimate Hardiment movement has some
infectious rhythms which carry the listener on, and, to my ears,
renders the flute to an almost secondary role – the rhythm is
something your ears can follow and enjoy, the flute is ‘way
out there’ somewhere, with technically exotic lines which are
harder to take in. Other movements possess atmospheric calm,
in which the expressive lines of the flute can more easily take
on the foreground.

All of the works here
are superbly performed and recorded. The Frits Philips hall has
a reasonably resonant acoustic, with some reflections which are
stimulated by louder dynamics, but with fairly close microphone
placements you get intimacy, detail and the concert-hall experience
all at the same time. Eline van Esch, well known in The Netherlands
and abroad, is an excellent soloist and advocate for Jolivet’s
music, and with a team of musicians sourced from the cream of
Dutch music making there can be no cause for complaint when it
comes to the ensemble pieces.

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